Automatic analysis of squash straight drives accuracy from a single camera view

Abstract

Squash is a racket and ball sport with an estimated 20 million players worldwide. Compared to sports like tennis and golf, squash tracking and analysis systems are rela- tively underdeveloped and performance analysis is often done by manual instruction or by pencil-and-paper. While in the recent years more advanced squash specific technology has become available, it requires high-cost specialised hardware and does not capture the location of the bounce of the ball on the floor. This project attempts to tackle this gap of existing squash analysis tools by using computer vision techniques to automate the collection of shot data of a common squash training drill "straight drives", where the ball is being repeatedly hit parallel to a side-wall of the court. An analytics program is developed that can process a video file of a player performing the "straight drives" drill and produce accuracy metrics from the video. The result of this work is a computer program that allows an easy way for the user to get feedback from their training and track their progress. 1